January 3rd, 2013

Now that everyone is all shopped out but likely didn’t get what they really wanted, I relisted a few things and added a few other things to my Etsy store. I’m down to just three of the robot/heart screen prints, so it’s your last chance for those…

February 2nd, 2010

Back last year when I took my screen printing class, I printed this robot with a heart. Remember that? Well, what you might not have known was that at the same time I printed that robot, I printed another, less cardiologically-correct version especially for the seventh-best holiday of the year, Valentine’s Day! This robot has a more traditional Valentiney-style pink heart in place of that anatomical one.
Now, by now I suspect that you’re thinking what I was thinking when I printed. You’re thinking “why, that cutie-pie whom I love and adore and think warm thoughts about absolutely loves robots, and by george this print is certainly a better idea than chocolate.” And if you are thinking that, you’d be wrong. Because chocolate is actually better. But this is a close second and you should get it for him/her anyway.

November 10th, 2009

This last weekend I finished my second poster print for the screenprinting class I’m taking at The University of the Arts here in Philadelphia. The plan was to do a complicated print similar to my race car collages I made earlier in the year. However, Tuesday rolled around and I wasn’t going to have it ready. So, as one does when one is unprepared, one makes a robot.
This design is one I made a year ago when I was first thinking about getting posters made. The heart comes from an old anatomy book my sister found somewhere in Arkansas.

The first color to go down was the light blue. The orange was next. A week or so later I printed the red line-art of the heart, and then last was the real warm grey part of the robot. You can kind of see where the grey overlaps the blue and makes it a darker, cooler grey.

I’m selling these things on Etsy. I haven’t counted the editions yet, but I suspect there are fifteen or so good prints. If you want it, go get it!

October 14th, 2009

Week three of my screenprinting class at The University of the Arts was last night and I was thrilled to get some ink down. Last week I had the first separation burned and ready. Last night was printing night. Class started out by viewing and admiring a selection of posters by Seripop, the Montréal-based poster-design duo of Yannick Desranleau and Chloe Lum. I’m familiar with Seripop and while I’m always happy to look at interesting posters, I was pretty single-minded, wanting to get right to mixing ink.
I bought a pretty standard Speedball green last week, but it was way too ugly for me to use for my vampire. Nuclear pukey green is more like what I was wanting. So I found a near-empty jar of bright bright yellow Speedball fabric ink, added quite a lot of white, and then dripped in my ugly green until it was perfect. I was surprised how little of my green I needed to get the color I wanted from that yellow. But when you see the color, I suppose it’s really more yellow than green.
Can I say again how good it is to be making something analog, away from the computer? It is.
Greg and his assistant Annie were busy helping the other students so I was trying to go through all the steps that we’d been shown. Of course, until I actually do it I don’t remember it. So I had to be reminded to tape the edges of my screen, put some cardboard bumpers on the bottom corners of my screen, correctly line up a sheet of mylar/acetate to set up positioning on my paper, cut five strips of tape to have ready for making my registration jig, etc. Thanks to Greg and Annie.

Finally it was time to print. The plan was to get at least twenty-five prints. I decided to just pull until I ran out of ink. There were some glitches as I went along, of course. Now and then I’d lose the right ear of the vampire kid, or some ink would glop in a place I didn’t want it to. In my art-life, I have a weird habit of misusing materials. I’ve never been very fastidious with tools. I spill ink, I break knives, etc. So the computer has been good to me as I can just get to the image-making without the clean-up and my own clumsiness ruining the process. Of course, staring at a giant monitor has its own issues. Making the race-car collages earlier this year really opened up a new world of analog art to me, and solidified my need to have a tactile experience in making stuff. That all being said, imagine my surprise that I pulled forty good prints out of fifty. In my head I started planning out my silkscreen set-up here in my studio.

So my fifty prints were done and drying on the rack. I washed out my screen and squeegee and cleaned up while the screen was drying. Originally I was hoping to get both colors down tonight but seeing as how it was 9pm already, I realized that this wasn’t going to happen. I was able to recoat the screen with emulsion and burn the second image, but will have to make it over to the university on either Sunday afternoon or Tuesday before class to print the violet. Stay tuned for all that.

December 19th, 2008

I’ve been watching everyone I know on Etsy buy yachts and retire at 30, so I figured I should jump on that train. I’ve been convinced to start selling some of this stuff that I do, especially the work I do for myself, as prints and posters. I have plans to have several screenprints made early next year. In the mean time, I am putting up several of my drawings as really nice digital prints on really nice paper.

As of today there are seven prints for sale. Over the next couple of weeks there will be several more. If you’ve been trying to think of that perfect gift to give weird Aunt Francis, I’m here for you. And I will ship Priority.